Skip to content
play
Out of stock

Ezequiel Menalled, Ensemble Modelo62

Battleship Potemkin

Out of stock

Tracked express shipping from Italy, no customs or import VAT in the EU. Shipping costs

Seventh in the MFR Contemporary Series. Ezequiel Menalled composes a new soundtrack for Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin (1925), performed by Ensemble Modelo62 and recorded at their Hague studio on 13 March 2020. Six acts span the film's structure, internalising the frantic editing in shifting layers, pulled focus and forced perspective. Realised in the spirit of Eisenstein's wish that a new score be written every twenty years, the music becomes a speculative meta-version of the film.

*300 copies limited edition* Nearly a century has passed since the release of Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin (Russian: Бронено́сец «Потёмкин», Bronenosets Potyomkin). We must speak out, now. Time has come. When the meat is rotten and maggots run across your plate, what's left to do? Remnant memories of times almost forgotten, or of traditions from back home, linger in the body military depleted. Our daily bread served as a timely reminder of shared humanity: a first step in an uprising of overwhelming vehemence. Those in power done away with, the representative of organized religion fed to the worms below the waves. The leader, fallen in battle, on land displayed, exemplified for all to see. His death instrumentalized "for a spoonful of borscht". The people now, frenzied, rise too. Siding with the Potemkin, the citizens of Odessa sail out to the ship. On the city steps a great many of people gather to support the rebels and their cause. But the steps turn into the grounds of a gruesome massacre when Cossacks fire into the unarmed crowds. People fall and tumble from the steps. The infamous image: a baby carriage rolling and bouncing down. A showdown then? The red flag drawn in solidarity, when Potemkin is allowed to pass unscathed, through battle lines.

We hear the granulated nature of the film itself, almost see the razor slicing through the edit frame. While we miss the rattle of the projector, the music calls to mind the flicker of its light beam through the dusty din of time and space immemorial, materialized and contained for generations to follow in the celluloid.

A disintegration reconstituted too, revitalized in the new performance by Modelo62.

Motifs, elements, personalities, textures, characters and materials appear to disappear to reappear. But relations are changed, time has moved on - times have evolved. Materials altered by accumulation or changed perspective, perhaps an increase of density, take on altogether new intrinsic qualities. Maybe even a rebellion against preconceived notions of fixed identities or ingrained politics.

Details
Cat. number: MFRC007
Year: 2023

Format

Track 6 has a typo on the artwork. Should be "One against all".

Edition limited to 300 copies

Release notes

Track 6 has a typo on the artwork. Should be "One against all". Edition limited to 300 copies

Tracklist
1Introduction
2Act I: Men and Magots
3Act II: Drama On The Deck
4Act III: A Dead Man Calls Out
5Act IV: The Odessa Steps
6Act V: Once Against All

Recently viewed